Alert: Phishing Campaigns Deliver New SideTwist Backdoor and Agent Tesla Variant

The Iranian threat actor tracked as APT34 has been linked to a new phishing attack that leads to the deployment of a variant of a backdoor called SideTwist. “APT34 has a high level of attack technology, can design different intrusion methods for different types of targets, and has supply chain attack capability,” NSFOCUS Security Labs said in a report published last week. APT34, also known by

Three CISOs Share How to Run an Effective SOC

The role of the CISO keeps taking center stage as a business enabler: CISOs need to navigate the complex landscape of digital threats while fostering innovation and ensuring business continuity. Three CISOs; Troy Wilkinson, CISO at IPG; Rob Geurtsen, former Deputy CISO at Nike; and Tammy Moskites, Founder of CyAlliance and former CISO at companies like Time Warner and Home Depot – shared their

9 Alarming Vulnerabilities Uncovered in SEL's Power Management Products

Nine security flaws have been disclosed in electric power management products made by Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL). “The most severe of those nine vulnerabilities would allow a threat actor to facilitate remote code execution (RCE) on an engineering workstation,” Nozomi Networks said in a report published last week. The issues, tracked as CVE-2023-34392 and from CVE-2023-31168

W3LL Store: How a Secret Phishing Syndicate Targets 8,000+ Microsoft 365 Accounts

A previously undocumented "phishing empire" has been linked to cyber attacks aimed at compromising Microsoft 365 business email accounts over the past six years. "The threat actor created a hidden underground market, named W3LL Store, that served a closed community of at least 500 threat actors who could purchase a custom phishing kit called W3LL Panel, designed to bypass MFA, as well as 16

Ukraine's CERT Thwarts APT28's Cyberattack on Critical Energy Infrastructure

The Computer Emergency Response Team of Ukraine (CERT-UA) on Tuesday said it thwarted a cyber attack against an unnamed critical energy infrastructure facility in the country. The intrusion, per the agency, started with a phishing email containing a link to a malicious ZIP archive that activates the infection chain. “Visiting the link will download a ZIP archive containing three JPG images (

New BLISTER Malware Update Fuelling Stealthy Network Infiltration

An updated version of a malware loader known as BLISTER is being used as part of SocGholish infection chains to distribute an open-source command-and-control (C2) framework called Mythic. “New BLISTER update includes keying feature that allows for precise targeting of victim networks and lowers exposure within VM/sandbox environments,” Elastic Security Labs researchers Salim Bitam and Daniel

New Python Variant of Chaes Malware Targets Banking and Logistics Industries

Banking and logistics industries are under the onslaught of a reworked variant of a malware called Chaes. "It has undergone major overhauls: from being rewritten entirely in Python, which resulted in lower detection rates by traditional defense systems, to a comprehensive redesign and an enhanced communication protocol," Morphisec said in a new detailed technical write-up shared with The Hacker

Way Too Vulnerable: Join this Webinar to Understand and Strengthen Identity Attack Surface

In today's digital age, it's not just about being online but how securely your organization operates online. Regardless of size or industry, every organization heavily depends on digital assets. The digital realm is where business takes place, from financial transactions to confidential data storage. While organizations have quickly adopted tools like Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA),

Key Cybersecurity Tools That Can Mitigate the Cost of a Breach

IBM's 2023 installment of their annual "Cost of a Breach" report has thrown up some interesting trends. Of course, breaches being costly is no longer news at this stage! What’s interesting is the difference in how organizations respond to threats and which technologies are helping reduce the costs associated with every IT team’s nightmare scenario.  The average cost of a breach rose once again

Researchers Warn of Cyber Weapons Used by Lazarus Group's Andariel Cluster

The North Korean threat actor known as Andariel has been observed employing an arsenal of malicious tools in its cyber assaults against corporations and organizations in the southern counterpart. “One characteristic of the attacks identified in 2023 is that there are numerous malware strains developed in the Go language,” the AhnLab Security Emergency Response Center (ASEC) said in a deep dive

Meta Takes Down Thousands of Accounts Involved in Disinformation Ops from China and Russia

Meta has disclosed that it disrupted two of the largest known covert influence operations in the world from China and Russia, blocking thousands of accounts and pages across its platform. “It targeted more than 50 apps, including Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, Pinterest, Medium, Blogspot, LiveJournal, VKontakte, Vimeo, and dozens of smaller platforms and

Hackers Exploit MinIO Storage System Vulnerabilities to Compromise Servers

An unknown threat actor has been observed weaponizing high-severity security flaws in the MinIO high-performance object storage system to achieve unauthorized code execution on affected servers. Cybersecurity and incident response firm Security Joes said the intrusion leveraged a publicly available exploit chain to backdoor the MinIO instance. The comprises CVE-2023-28432 (CVSS score: 7.5) and 

X (Twitter) to Collect Biometric Data from Premium Users to Combat Impersonation

X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, has updated its privacy policy to collect users’ biometric data to tackle fraud and impersonation on the platform. “Based on your consent, we may collect and use your biometric information for safety, security, and identification purposes,” the company said. The revised policy is expected to go into effect on September 29, 2023. The social

Everything You Wanted to Know About AI Security but Were Afraid to Ask

There’s been a great deal of AI hype recently, but that doesn’t mean the robots are here to replace us. This article sets the record straight and explains how businesses should approach AI. From musing about self-driving cars to fearing AI bots that could destroy the world, there has been a great deal of AI hype in the past few years. AI has captured our imaginations, dreams, and occasionally,

Vietnamese Cybercriminals Targeting Facebook Business Accounts with Malvertising

Malicious actors associated with the Vietnamese cybercrime ecosystem are leveraging advertising-as-a-vector on social media platforms such as Meta-owned Facebook to distribute malware. “Threat actors have long used fraudulent ads as a vector to target victims with scams, malvertising, and more,” WithSecure researcher Mohammad Kazem Hassan Nejad said. “And with businesses now leveraging the reach

Chinese-Speaking Cybercriminals Launch Large-Scale iMessage Smishing Campaign in U.S.

A new large-scale smishing campaign is targeting the U.S. by sending iMessages from compromised Apple iCloud accounts with an aim to conduct identity theft and financial fraud. “The Chinese-speaking threat actors behind this campaign are operating a package-tracking text scam sent via iMessage to collect personally identifying information (PII) and payment credentials from victims, in the

Beware of MalDoc in PDF: A New Polyglot Attack Allowing Attackers to Evade Antivirus

Cybersecurity researchers have called attention to a new antivirus evasion technique that involves embedding a malicious Microsoft Word file into a PDF file. The sneaky method, dubbed MalDoc in PDF by JPCERT/CC, is said to have been employed in an in-the-wild attack in July 2023. "A file created with MalDoc in PDF can be opened in Word even though it has magic numbers and file structure of PDF,"

PoC Exploit Released for Critical VMware Aria's SSH Auth Bypass Vulnerability

Proof-of-concept (PoC) exploit code has been made available for a recently disclosed and patched critical flaw impacting VMware Aria Operations for Networks (formerly vRealize Network Insight). The flaw, tracked as CVE-2023-34039, is rated 9.8 out of a maximum of 10 for severity and has been described as a case of authentication bypass due to a lack of unique cryptographic key generation. “A

Okta Warns of Social Engineering Attacks Targeting Super Administrator Privileges

Identity services provider Okta on Friday warned of social engineering attacks orchestrated by threat actors to obtain elevated administrator permissions. “In recent weeks, multiple U.S.-based Okta customers have reported a consistent pattern of social engineering attacks against IT service desk personnel, in which the caller’s strategy was to convince service desk personnel to reset all

Threat Actors Targeting Microsoft SQL Servers to Deploy FreeWorld Ransomware

Threat actors are exploiting poorly secured Microsoft SQL (MS SQL) servers to deliver Cobalt Strike and a ransomware strain called FreeWorld. Cybersecurity firm Securonix, which has dubbed the campaign DB#JAMMER, said it stands out for the way the toolset and infrastructure is employed. “Some of these tools include enumeration software, RAT payloads, exploitation and credential stealing software

Russian State-Backed 'Infamous Chisel' Android Malware Targets Ukrainian Military

Cybersecurity and intelligence agencies from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the U.K., and the U.S. on Thursday disclosed details of a mobile malware strain targeting Android devices used by the Ukrainian military. The malicious software, dubbed Infamous Chisel and attributed to a Russian state-sponsored actor called Sandworm, has capabilities to “enable unauthorized access to compromised

New SuperBear Trojan Emerges in Targeted Phishing Attack on South Korean Activists

A new phishing attack likely targeting civil society groups in South Korea has led to the discovery of a novel remote access trojan called SuperBear. The intrusion singled out an unnamed activist, who was contacted in late August 2023 and received a malicious LNK file from an address impersonating a member of the organization, non-profit entity Interlabs said in a new report. The LNK file, upon

It's a Zero-day? It's Malware? No! It's Username and Password

As cyber threats continue to evolve, adversaries are deploying a range of tools to breach security defenses and compromise sensitive data. Surprisingly, one of the most potent weapons in their arsenal is not malicious code but simply stolen or weak usernames and passwords. This article explores the seriousness of compromised credentials, the challenges they present to security solutions, and the

Classiscam Scam-as-a-Service Raked $64.5 Million During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Classiscam scam-as-a-service program has reaped the criminal actors $64.5 million in illicit earnings since its emergence in 2019. "Classiscam campaigns initially started out on classified sites, on which scammers placed fake advertisements and used social engineering techniques to convince users to pay for goods by transferring money to bank cards," Group-IB said in a new report. "Since

SapphireStealer Malware: A Gateway to Espionage and Ransomware Operations

An open-source .NET-based information stealer malware dubbed SapphireStealer is being used by multiple entities to enhance its capabilities and spawn their own bespoke variants. “Information-stealing malware like SapphireStealer can be used to obtain sensitive information, including corporate credentials, which are often resold to other threat actors who leverage the access for additional

North Korean Hackers Deploy New Malicious Python Packages in PyPI Repository

Three additional rogue Python packages have been discovered in the Package Index (PyPI) repository as part of an ongoing malicious software supply chain campaign called VMConnect, with signs pointing to the involvement of North Korean state-sponsored threat actors. The findings come from ReversingLabs, which detected the packages tablediter, request-plus, and requestspro. First disclosed at the

Numbers Don't Lie: Exposing the Harsh Truths of Cyberattacks in New Report

How often do cyberattacks happen? How frequently do threat actors target businesses and governments around the world? The BlackBerry® Threat Research and Intelligence Team recently analyzed 90 days of real-world data to answer these questions. Full results are in the latest BlackBerry Global Threat Intelligence Report, but read on for a teaser of several interesting cyber attack statistics.

Earth Estries' Espionage Campaign Targets Governments and Tech Titans Across Continents

A hacking outfit nicknamed Earth Estries has been attributed to a new, ongoing cyber espionage campaign targeting government and technology industries based in the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Africa, Germany, and the U.S. "The threat actors behind Earth Estries are working with high-level resources and functioning with sophisticated skills and experience in cyber espionage and illicit

Hackers Can Exploit Windows Container Isolation Framework to Bypass Endpoint Security

New findings show that malicious actors could leverage a sneaky malware detection evasion technique and bypass endpoint security solutions by manipulating the Windows Container Isolation Framework. The findings were presented by Deep Instinct security researcher Daniel Avinoam at the DEF CON security conference held earlier this month. Microsoft's container architecture (and by extension, 

MMRat Android Trojan Executes Remote Financial Fraud Through Accessibility Feature

A previously undocumented Android banking trojan dubbed MMRat has been observed targeting mobile users in Southeast Asia since late June 2023 to remotely commandeer the devices and perform financial fraud. "The malware, named after its distinctive package name com.mm.user, can capture user input and screen content, and can also remotely control victim devices through various techniques, enabling

China-Linked BadBazaar Android Spyware Targeting Signal and Telegram Users

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered malicious Android apps for Signal and Telegram distributed via the Google Play Store and Samsung Galaxy Store that are engineered to deliver the BadBazaar spyware on infected devices. Slovakian company ESET attributed the campaign to a China-linked actor called GREF. "Most likely active since July 2020 and since July 2022, respectively, the campaigns

How to Prevent ChatGPT From Stealing Your Content & Traffic

ChatGPT and similar large language models (LLMs) have added further complexity to the ever-growing online threat landscape. Cybercriminals no longer need advanced coding skills to execute fraud and other damaging attacks against online businesses and customers, thanks to bots-as-a-service, residential proxies, CAPTCHA farms, and other easily accessible tools.  Now, the latest technology damaging

Malicious npm Packages Aim to Target Developers for Source Code Theft

An unknown threat actor is leveraging malicious npm packages to target developers with an aim to steal source code and configuration files from victim machines, a sign of how threats lurk consistently in open-source repositories. "The threat actor behind this campaign has been linked to malicious activity dating back to 2021," software supply chain security firm Checkmarx said in a report shared

Alert: Juniper Firewalls, Openfire, and Apache RocketMQ Under Attack from New Exploits

Recently disclosed security flaws impacting Juniper firewalls, Openfire, and Apache RocketMQ servers have come under active exploitation in the wild, according to multiple reports. The Shadowserver Foundation said that it's "seeing exploitation attempts from multiple IPs for Juniper J-Web CVE-2023-36844 (& friends) targeting /webauth_operation.php endpoint," the same day a proof-of-concept (PoC)

Critical Vulnerability Alert: VMware Aria Operations Networks at Risk from Remote Attacks

VMware has released software updates to correct two security vulnerabilities in Aria Operations for Networks that could be potentially exploited to bypass authentication and gain remote code execution. The most severe of the flaws is CVE-2023-34039 (CVSS score: 9.8), which relates to a case of authentication bypass arising as a result of a lack of unique cryptographic key generation. "A

FBI Dismantles QakBot Malware, Frees 700,000 Computers, Seizes $8.6 Million

A coordinated law enforcement effort codenamed Operation Duck Hunt has felled QakBot, a notorious Windows malware family that's estimated to have compromised over 700,000 computers globally and facilitated financial fraud as well as ransomware. To that end, the U.S. Justice Department (DoJ) said the malware is "being deleted from victim computers, preventing it from doing any more harm," adding

Chinese Hacking Group Exploits Barracuda Zero-Day to Target Government, Military, and Telecom

A suspected Chinese-nexus hacking group exploited a recently disclosed zero-day flaw in Barracuda Networks Email Security Gateway (ESG) appliances to breach government, military, defense and aerospace, high-tech industry, and telecom sectors as part of a global espionage campaign. Mandiant, which is tracking the activity under the name UNC4841, described the threat actor as "highly responsive to

DarkGate Malware Activity Spikes as Developer Rents Out Malware to Affiliates

A new malspam campaign has been observed deploying an off-the-shelf malware called DarkGate. "The current spike in DarkGate malware activity is plausible given the fact that the developer of the malware has recently started to rent out the malware to a limited number of affiliates," Telekom Security said in a report published last week. The latest report build onn recent findings from security

Survey Provides Takeaways for Security Pros to Operationalize their Remediation Life Cycle

Ask any security professional and they’ll tell you that remediating risks from various siloed security scanning tools requires a tedious and labor-intensive series of steps focused on deduplication, prioritization, and routing of issues to an appropriate “fixer” somewhere in the organization. This burden on already resource-strapped security teams is an efficiency killer.  A new study,

Citrix NetScaler Alert: Ransomware Hackers Exploiting Critical Vulnerability

Unpatched Citrix NetScaler systems exposed to the internet are being targeted by unknown threat actors in what's suspected to be a ransomware attack. Cybersecurity company Sophos is tracking the activity cluster under the moniker STAC4663. Attack chains involve the exploitation of CVE-2023-3519, a critical code injection vulnerability impacting NetScaler ADC and Gateway servers that could

Phishing-as-a-Service Gets Smarter: Microsoft Sounds Alarm on AiTM Attacks

Microsoft is warning of an increase in adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) phishing techniques, which are being propagated as part of the phishing-as-a-service (PhaaS) cybercrime model. In addition to an uptick in AiTM-capable PhaaS platforms, the tech giant noted that existing phishing services like PerSwaysion are incorporating AiTM capabilities. "This development in the PhaaS ecosystem enables

Experts Uncover How Cybercriminals Could Exploit Microsoft Entra ID for Elevated Privilege

Cybersecurity researchers have discovered a case of privilege escalation associated with a Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) application by taking advantage of an abandoned reply URL. "An attacker could leverage this abandoned URL to redirect authorization codes to themselves, exchanging the ill-gotten authorization codes for access tokens," Secureworks Counter Threat Unit (

Developers Beware: Malicious Rust Libraries Caught Transmitting OS Info to Telegram Channel

In yet another sign that developers continue to be targets of software supply chain attacks, a number of malicious packages have been discovered on the Rust programming language's crate registry. The libraries, uploaded between August 14 and 16, 2023, were published by a user named "amaperf," Phylum said in a report published last week. The names of the packages, now taken down, are as follows:

Cyberattacks Targeting E-commerce Applications

Cyber attacks on e-commerce applications are a common trend in 2023 as e-commerce businesses become more omnichannel, they build and deploy increasingly more API interfaces, with threat actors constantly exploring more ways to exploit vulnerabilities. This is why regular testing and ongoing monitoring are necessary to fully protect web applications, identifying weaknesses so they can be

KmsdBot Malware Gets an Upgrade: Now Targets IoT Devices with Enhanced Capabilities

An updated version of a botnet malware called KmsdBot is now targeting Internet of Things (IoT) devices, simultaneously branching out its capabilities and the attack surface. "The binary now includes support for Telnet scanning and support for more CPU architectures," Akamai security researcher Larry W. Cashdollar said in an analysis published this month. <!--adsense--> The latest iteration,

LockBit 3.0 Ransomware Builder Leak Gives Rise to Hundreds of New Variants

The leak of the LockBit 3.0 ransomware builder last year has led to threat actors abusing the tool to spawn new variants. Russian cybersecurity company Kaspersky said it detected a ransomware intrusion that deployed a version of LockBit but with a markedly different ransom demand procedure. "The attacker behind this incident decided to use a different ransom note with a headline related to a

Kroll Suffers Data Breach: Employee Falls Victim to SIM Swapping Attack

Risk and financial advisory solutions provider Kroll on Friday disclosed that one of its employees fell victim to a "highly sophisticated" SIM swapping attack. The incident, which took place on August 19, 2023, targeted the employee's T-Mobile account, the company said. "Specifically, T-Mobile, without any authority from or contact with Kroll or its employee, transferred that employee's phone

Two LAPSUS$ Hackers Convicted in London Court for High-Profile Tech Firm Hacks

Two U.K. teenagers have been convicted by a jury in London for being part of the notorious LAPSUS$ (aka Slippy Spider) transnational gang and for orchestrating a series of brazen, high-profile hacks against major tech firms and demanding a ransom in exchange for not leaking the stolen information. This includes Arion Kurtaj (aka White, Breachbase, WhiteDoxbin, and TeaPotUberHacker), an

Learn How Your Business Data Can Amplify Your AI/ML Threat Detection Capabilities

In today's digital landscape, your business data is more than just numbers—it's a powerhouse. Imagine leveraging this data not only for profit but also for enhanced AI and Machine Learning (ML) threat detection. For companies like Comcast, this isn't a dream. It's reality. Your business comprehends its risks, vulnerabilities, and the unique environment in which it operates. No generic,

Navigating Legacy Infrastructure: A CISO's Actionable Strategy for Success

Every company has some level of tech debt. Unless you’re a brand new start-up, you most likely have a patchwork of solutions that have been implemented throughout the years, often under various leadership teams with different priorities and goals. As those technologies age, they can leave your organization vulnerable to cyber threats. While replacing legacy technologies can be costly, those

China-Linked Flax Typhoon Cyber Espionage Targets Taiwan's Key Sectors

A nation-state activity group originating from China has been linked to cyber attacks on dozens of organizations in Taiwan as part of a suspected espionage campaign. The Microsoft Threat Intelligence team is tracking the activity under the name Flax Typhoon, which is also known as Ethereal Panda. "Flax Typhoon gains and maintains long-term access to Taiwanese organizations' networks with minimal

Urgent FBI Warning: Barracuda Email Gateways Vulnerable Despite Recent Patches

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is warning that Barracuda Networks Email Security Gateway (ESG) appliances patched against a recently disclosed critical flaw continue to be at risk of potential compromise from suspected Chinese hacking groups. It also deemed the fixes as "ineffective" and that it "continues to observe active intrusions and considers all affected Barracuda ESG

Lazarus Group Exploits Critical Zoho ManageEngine Flaw to Deploy Stealthy QuiteRAT Malware

The North Korea-linked threat actor known as Lazarus Group has been observed exploiting a now-patched critical security flaw impacting Zoho ManageEngine ServiceDesk Plus to distribute a remote access trojan called such as QuiteRAT. Targets include internet backbone infrastructure and healthcare entities in Europe and the U.S., cybersecurity company Cisco Talos said in a two-part analysis 

New Telegram Bot "Telekopye" Powering Large-scale Phishing Scams from Russia

A new financially motivated operation is leveraging a malicious Telegram bot to help threat actors scam their victims. Dubbed Telekopye, a portmanteau of Telegram and kopye (meaning "spear" in Russian), the toolkit functions as an automated means to create a phishing web page from a premade template and send the URL to potential victims, codenamed Mammoths by the criminals. "This toolkit is

The Hidden Dangers of Public Wi-Fi

Public Wi-Fi, which has long since become the norm, poses threats to not only individual users but also businesses. With the rise of remote work, people can now work from virtually anywhere: a cafe close to home, a hotel in a different city, or even while waiting for a plane at the airport. Next, let's explore the risks of connecting to public Wi-Fi, both for you personally and for businesses.

New "Whiffy Recon" Malware Triangulates Infected Device Location via Wi-Fi Every Minute

The SmokeLoader malware is being used to deliver a new Wi-Fi scanning malware strain called Whiffy Recon on compromised Windows machines. "The new malware strain has only one operation. Every 60 seconds it triangulates the infected systems' positions by scanning nearby Wi-Fi access points as a data point for Google's geolocation API," Secureworks Counter Threat Unit (CTU) said in a statement

WinRAR Security Flaw Exploited in Zero-Day Attacks to Target Traders

A recently patched security flaw in the popular WinRAR archiving software has been exploited as a zero-day since April 2023, new findings from Group-IB reveal. The vulnerability, cataloged as CVE-2023-38831, allows threat actors to spoof file extensions, thereby making it possible to launch malicious scripts contained within an archive that masquerades as seemingly innocuous image or text files.

Thousands of Unpatched Openfire XMPP Servers Still Exposed to High-Severity Flaw

Thousands of Openfire XMPP servers are unpatched against a recently disclosed high-severity flaw and are susceptible to a new exploit, according to a new report from VulnCheck. Tracked as CVE-2023-32315 (CVSS score: 7.5), the vulnerability relates to a path traversal vulnerability in Openfire's administrative console that could permit an unauthenticated attacker to access otherwise restricted

Tornado Cash Founders Charged in Billion-Dollar Crypto Laundering Scandal

The U.S. Justice Department (DoJ) on Wednesday unsealed an indictment against two founders of the now-sanctioned Tornado Cash cryptocurrency mixer service, charging them with laundering more than $1 billion in criminal proceeds. Both the individuals, Roman Storm and Roman Semenov, have been charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, conspiracy to commit sanctions violations, and

North Korean Affiliates Suspected in $40M Cryptocurrency Heist, FBI Warns

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Tuesday warned that threat actors affiliated with North Korea may attempt to cash out stolen cryptocurrency worth more than $40 million. The law enforcement agency attributed the blockchain activity to an adversary the U.S. government tracks as TraderTraitor, which is also known by the name Jade Sleet. An investigation undertaken by the FBI found